The Valenquor

[Starkbringer]

I was reading some ASOIAF material and thinking about Cersei's prophecy when something struck me as very strange and I wanted to share it.  If one of the many brainiacs on this site has already covered this then please pardon me and please guide me to the thread.  

Anyway, Maggi the Frog speaks to Cersei in the common tongue for the entire prophecy and yet uses a high valerian word to describe her killer.  Why is that?  Why not say the little brother?  

Now I know this is mixing but in Season 7,  Missandel  is explaining to Daenerys that some high valerian words can be either / both the masculine and feminine such as Azor Ahai could be either the prince or princess that was promised.   So is there a high valerian word for younger sister or younger sibling?  If not, then this could open a huge can of possible killers, most likely Arya. 

[Yaya]

WAIT - i had to stop reading as soon as I hit the at the bit about season 7 .... good day!

[Starkbringer]

OK, I looked up Valonquar in the Dothraki dictionary and it says 

• valonqar [va'loɴqar]

n. 1aq. younger brother^[220]; younger male cousin by father's brother or mother's sister^[45].

 

I have no doubt that if the Winds of Winter was out now that this would have been mentioned/ discussed because I believe the gender neutral thing is relevant.  If Valonquar simply means younger sibling and not just little brother then it changes the entire idea of who ultimately kills Cersei. Thank you.

[Bitterblooms]

 I'm pretty sure the same is explained by Aemon on the books so if you edit the op you will probably get better responses and not violate board norms.

[The Commentator]

The language is gender neutral.  Which opens up the list of possible people.  

[Ferocious Veldt Roarer]

19 hours ago, Starkbringer said:

 So is there a high valerian word for younger sister or younger sibling?  If not, then this could open a huge can of possible killers, most likely Arya. 

Actually, the can of possibilities will be so huge that Maggy's words will be meaningless.

People like to interpret "the valonqar" as, effectively, "some person" - because that's what "anybody, no relation to Cersei, of any gender, as long as he or she has or had some older sibling" amounts to. I strongly disagree. I still believe that Maggy's words actually conveyed some non-trivial information, as crazy as it sounds.

(And don't get me started on YAMBQ...)

[Dorian Martell's son]

20 hours ago, Starkbringer said:

Anyway, Maggi the Frog speaks to Cersei in the common tongue for the entire prophecy and yet uses a high valerian word to describe her killer.  Why is that?  Why not say the little brother?  

The author did not want to spell it out for the reader. The gender neutral aspect of High Valyrian is supposed to keep the reader guessing. 

[John Suburbs]

21 hours ago, Starkbringer said:

I was reading some ASOIAF material and thinking about Cersei's prophecy when something struck me as very strange and I wanted to share it.  If one of the many brainiacs on this site has already covered this then please pardon me and please guide me to the thread.  

Anyway, Maggi the Frog speaks to Cersei in the common tongue for the entire prophecy and yet uses a high valerian word to describe her killer.  Why is that?  Why not say the little brother?  

Now I know this is mixing but in Season 7,  Missandel  is explaining to Daenerys that some high valerian words can be either / both the masculine and feminine such as Azor Ahai could be either the prince or princess that was promised.   So is there a high valerian word for younger sister or younger sibling?  If not, then this could open a huge can of possible killers, most likely Arya. 

Yup, this one is wide open to virtually anyone who is not a first-born child -- and even then, some people are first born to one parent but not another or had elder siblings who were still-born or died in the crib, or maybe even a miscarriage counts. Heck, we can go way out on a limb and say that the V doesn't even have to be human -- like, say, a dire wolf.

My money is still on Tommen, though, after he's died, of course.

 

[Clegane'sPup]

On 5/6/2018 at 5:30 PM, Starkbringer said:

Anyway, Maggi the Frog speaks to Cersei in the common tongue for the entire prophecy and yet uses a high valerian word to describe her killer.  Why is that?  Why not say the little brother?  

Ole Frog is being dramatic and using her worldliness to scare some kids?

Depends on how far a person is willing to twist language to prove a point. Cersei believes Tyrion is the valonqar. Is Tyrion the valonqar? I don’t know. Valonqar is supposed to be some obscure Valyrian word in a made up world of Westeros.

A Feast for Crows - Cersei VIII      "Your Grace," the Tyroshi murmured, bowing low, "I see you are as lovely as the tales. Even beyond the narrow sea we have heard of your great beauty, and the grief that tears your gentle heart. No man can restore your brave young son to you, but it is my hope I can at least offer you some balm for your pain." He laid his hand upon his chest. "I bring you justice. I bring you the head of your valonqar."       The old Valyrian word sent a chill through her, though it also gave her a tingle of hope. "The Imp is no longer my brother, if he ever was," she declared. "Nor will I say his name. It was a proud name once, before he dishonored it."/

 

When Cersei thinks back on her reading (which wasn’t a reading), Cersei remembers the experience. Martin chose to use the pronoun his. If the word valonqar is gender neutral martin would have used the word its instead of his. Then again FfC was released well before political correctness overpowered freedom to speak.

 

A Feast for Crows - Cersei VIII     The old woman was not done with her, however. "Gold shall be their crowns and gold their shrouds," she said. "And when your tears have drowned you, the valonqar shall wrap his hands about your pale white throat and choke the life from you."     "What is a valonqar? Some monster?" The golden girl did not like that foretelling. "You're a liar and a warty frog and a smelly old savage, and I don't believe a word of what you say. Come away, Melara. She is not worth hearing." /

 

Cersei got her description of valonqar from a Septa. I don’t know. I’m guessing the septa was educated somewhere in Westeros.

 

A Feast for Crows - Cersei IX         "She?"      "The maegi." The words came tumbling out of her. She could still hear Melara Hetherspoon insisting that if they never spoke about the prophecies, they would not come true. She was not so silent in the well, though. She screamed and shouted. "Tyrion is the valonqar," she said. "Do you use that word in Myr? It's High Valyrian, it means little brother." She had asked Septa Saranella about the word, after Melara drowned./

 

So, depending upon on what a reader wants to believe, it appears to me that the author meant the word valonqar to mean male younger brother.

There is also that line of thought that Cersei exited the birth canal before Jaime therefore making Jaime the younger brother. which leads into Jaime not Tyrion being the valonqar,

[Lady Blizzardborn]

11 hours ago, Widowmaker 811 said:

The language is gender neutral.  Which opens up the list of possible people.  

The word for dragon is gender-neutral, not the entire language. Otherwise Aemon wouldn't have made a point of bringing up one word of a Valyrian prophecy.

On 5/6/2018 at 4:58 PM, Starkbringer said:

If Valonquar simply means younger sibling and not just little brother then it changes the entire idea of who ultimately kills Cersei. Thank you.

Actually it doesn't, because Maggy said "the valonqar will wrap his hands around your pale, white throat and choke the life from you."

 

[LynnS]

This really makes me chuckle because I have the strange notion that Marwyn is related to Cersei and he is the 'little brother' with enormous hands who will strangle Cersei in the end.  Especially after his speech about treacherous women and prophecy.  He belongs to a brotherhood, is described as short and squat (little) and has the biggest hands that Sam has ever seen.  So I imagine that someone who visits Asshai by the sea, might end up with a Valyrian moniker that describes him as little and brother; valonqar by the denizens of those parts. 

It's one of the things that makes me laugh... the notion that Marwyn  is Tywin's offspring and the reason why Tyrion's aunt Joanna is so certain that Tyrion is Tywin's son... because she is aware that Tywin has produced another dwarf-ish offspring.

But that's just me.  I put that in the same bucket along with Robert Baratheon's head sewn onto Gregor Clegane's body.

[goldenlion]

the language isnt entirely gender neutral its just the valyrian word for the prince who was promised was gender neutral so that it can mean either prince or princess that doesnt mean the language was gender neutral

[Lost Melnibonean]

On 5/6/2018 at 5:30 PM, Starkbringer said:

I was reading some ASOIAF material and thinking about Cersei's prophecy when something struck me as very strange and I wanted to share it.  If one of the many brainiacs on this site has already covered this then please pardon me and please guide me to the thread.  

Anyway, Maggi the Frog speaks to Cersei in the common tongue for the entire prophecy and yet uses a high valerian word to describe her killer.  Why is that?  Why not say the little brother?  

Now I know this is mixing but in Season 7,  Missandel  is explaining to Daenerys that some high valerian words can be either / both the masculine and feminine such as Azor Ahai could be either the prince or princess that was promised.   So is there a high valerian word for younger sister or younger sibling?  If not, then this could open a huge can of possible killers, most likely Arya. 

To keep the reader guessing.